


bolt the door

by ninata



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Fate/strange fake
Genre: Canon Compliant, Grief/Mourning, M/M, mostly at least, surprisingly not enkidu's death, there's some other characters mentioned but not notably enough to tag, two best friends talk about death and stuff i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 14:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15559761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninata/pseuds/ninata
Summary: Gilgamesh doesn't want to think about the Holy Grail Wars of Fuyuki, but unfortunately, Enkidu doesn't care what he wants. They send him spiraling into the things he promised himself he wouldn't speak of regarding a certain priest.





	bolt the door

**Author's Note:**

> welcome, fate readers! unfortunately, i'm the kind of writer that only wants to talk about death.  
> this fic follows the idea that f/sf is in the same timeline as f/z, f/sn, and f/ha.  
> warnings for:  
> -some ableist language  
> -lots of mentions of death and torture  
> -one small implication about self harm  
> -some unkind words about christianity  
> -references to sex  
> like my last work, gilgamesh and kirei weren't as simple as fwb, but they weren't...dating...or anything. they were kind of just... gestures. just read it.  
> enkidu is not gendered in this fic. they/them only. gilgamesh REFUSES to call the wolf anything but 'dog'.

Some things should remain untouched— some doors should stay closed. Gilgamesh isn’t fond of the rhetoric, but it holds some weight. He can know it as such— as an unfortunate truth— and leave it at that. He doesn’t need to say it aloud, knowing it’d contradict with his reputation of doing as he pleases.

Some things aren’t worth rehashing. Of thinking back over.

“Truly, Gil? You were in two wars right before this one?” Enkidu strokes the fur of their master, lithe fingers smoothing its matted coat. Gilgamesh would think the thing pitiful, but it’d been thousands of years since he last questioned Enkidu’s whims. If the dog had earned their respect, Gilgamesh must give it the same courtesy.

“Yes,” Gilgamesh stares over the grass, into the woods on the other side of the clearing. This country certainly was vast. It could almost pass as an enjoyable place to be in, were its people not so repulsive. “Being summoned again so quickly was unexpected, but that girl isn’t so awful.”

“You like her, then?”

Painfully to the point. Gilgamesh does loathe that. He waves his hand noncommitally.

The smile can be heard in their voice. He doesn’t need to look. “And your last masters?”

_ The door should stay firmly shut,  _ he thinks again.

“A dreadfully boring coward and a madman.”

How simply put. The breeze rustles the waves of green. The dog lifts its nose up, giving a quiet snort.

“How peculiar,” Enkidu’s voice catches the wind, drifting along with it. “Why have you gotten so tense?”

Is he? Damn their perceptiveness. “I’m not tense.” Gilgamesh retorts.

“A tender subject? Were they so cruel?”

_ Lock and bolt it.  _ “Something like that.”

“Tell me.”

Of course, only one person could ever make such demands of a king. Gilgamesh grumbles, his fingers tapping against the flesh of his forearms.

“There isn’t much to be said. A magus summoned me— and his wish for the Grail was painfully dull. He thought to use me as he needed, then sacrifice me to earn his wish, all while keeping the latter a secret so I wouldn't strike him down.”

“You were defeated, then?”

“Hardly. He was done away with.”

“And you stayed?”

“Another mage formed a contract with me.”

“Tense again.” Enkidu comments. Gilgamesh frowns. “Who was this mage? Why do they trouble you so?”

“I’m  _ not  _ troubled. You’re reading too far into things.”

“Excuses won’t change my mind, nor will lies. If you won’t tell me, I’ll have to find out on my own.” And what a threat  _ that  _ is. Gilgamesh, again, knows better than to cross his dearest friend. 

_ The key must be disposed of,  _ he thinks,  _ melted down and buried in a riverbed. No, at the bottom of the ocean. _

“He was insane,” He carefully words himself, carefully relaxes his shoulders, carefully lets his face hang loose. “A sadistic, bloodthirsty priest looking for an excuse to cause suffering. I gave him a push, and off he went. We won the war— not the Grail, exactly, but the war— and I stayed with him until the next one.”

“My,” Enkidu titters. “Was that so hard? How long was it, decades? That’s how long, isn’t it?”

“Only one. Odd circumstances.”

“I see. What, then? Do you feel guilty? Did he go on to be some prolific serial killer?”

Gilgamesh shakes his head.

“No. He’s dead. I suppose he died a serial killer, but dead nonetheless.”

There’s a silence that follows.  _ The door should be fortified with steel, _ his mind insists.

“What was his name?” Enkidu takes a gentle tone. Gilgamesh hates that.

“I’ve forgotten.” He lies.

“At least tell me what you remember.”

Is that what’s happening, then? Enkidu will force the door open? They always do. Had Gilgamesh missed this as well? Hardly. Enkidu pulled so much out of him. Some things were better kept sealed shut.

“His wish for the Grail, you see, was destruction. Truly rotten to his core. I suppose it was entertaining to watch him rot further. So content to be bossed around for so long, yet all it took was a few words and glasses of wine to have him kill his mentor and torture the other masters. In those ten years, he—“

Gilgamesh, in devising his story, is assaulted by unpleasant memories.

Wine— decomposing children, locked in the basement— the two of them, laughing— all he wanted, without any questions, gold things and trinkets and modern technology— meals he never had to prepare—  _ his _ hair growing out, how stupid it looked— the hypocrisy of what they did there, in a place of worship— touch, skin, lips—

“Gil…” How he hates it. It may be Enkidu, but he despises showing weakness. How fucking stupid. Gilgamesh glares at the distant trees.

“It’s of no matter. He meddled with the next war, he lost. It wasn’t as though he could survive it. The Grail— he had died, it ‘revived’ him, so he couldn’t outlive it. Hardly a shame. He killed innocents simply for the sport of it. Ruined so many lives. Dead is dead.”

“And yet you tremble.”

Gilgamesh turns his head sharply. Enkidu’s face has drooped. Sags at the corners of their eyes, the corners of their lips tugged down their cheeks. Their hand reaches, grazes Gilgamesh’s cheek. The dog whimpers at the change in their posture.

“Why does it make you so sad?” They ask.

“It doesn’t—“ What’s the use in denying it? Enkidu knows him far too well. It takes grand effort to say it. “I...simply grew used to him.”

"I see." Their somber gaze shoots daggers into Gilgamesh, biting sting of those hazel eyes. Gilgamesh curses the line of thought that brought them here. He won't be let off without explaining everything, will he?

“...I met his daughter after he died.” Gilgamesh squints off at nothing. “Another servant always said they were so alike. I didn’t— I didn’t truly agree. There was something Kotomine had that she—“

“His name?” Enkidu interjects quietly. Fuck.

“...Kirei Kotomine.” Gilgamesh shakes his head. “A foolish name for a foolish man.”

Caren Hortensia, however, was unlike Kirei. Gilgamesh knew that. A master to him only in name— after all, that was hardly a Grail war— and that pesky Lancer felt the need to declare how similar she was to her father. Perhaps to some daft prick who hadn't been around either of them long enough, nor understood people well. The two had the appearance of similarity, but were oceans apart— a young girl using her charm to ensnare people and humiliate them, and a man with such thinly veiled intentions, it was a wonder no one caught on until it was too late. An immature, violent child. A grown man with nothing left. A spoiled brat who longed for a father she never had. A walking corpse who knew nothing of love. Of tenderness.

Gilgamesh shakes his head. There's a reason he wanted nothing to do with this. He had no desire to dig up something so pointless and look it over again. What more was there to say? Kirei Kotomine was simple, after all.

He'd already put it quite succinctly. A mad priest who wanted to see the Curse of the Grail realized. A soulless murderer. Scars, still visible under his command seals. Gilgamesh knew they weren’t from his role as an executor. Kirei, who cut so cleanly, with eyes devoid of light or life. Who cried with joy when his father’s corpse turned up on that church’s floor. Who tortured children in the basement for some grandiose display of— of what? Of villainy?  _ You know I don’t need it. I’ve plenty of mana. _

_ Yes, I do know that. I only wanted— _

Head-splitting agony. But why? It didn’t matter. Gilgamesh didn’t  _ want  _ it to matter. He hated the idea of taking such a meaningless decade of life so seriously. 

So he didn’t. He didn’t. He wouldn’t. 

_ Claudia,  _ Kirei had said once.  _ That was her name. _

_ Was she beautiful?  _ Gilgamesh hissed into his ear, his fingers wrenched in knots of his hair.

_ I don’t remember,  _ he said, and for a second, he almost looked sad.

Pathetic. A pathetic man. He knew nothing of the pleasures life had to offer, even after their time together. Was killing a pleasure? Had Gilgamesh shown him anything? Oh, but who cares? It was just words. He’d only said it to fascinate Kirei. He hadn’t— couldn’t have  _ meant  _ it. What did it matter if the only thing Gilgamesh did for him was turn him into a monster?

No matter how he'd loathe to admit it, the Grail  _ had  _ changed Gilgamesh. Being outside its influence made it clear. It didn't drive him  _ mad,  _ persay— but it may have clouded his judgment a bit. Perhaps nudged him into the direction of destruction. The fault, of course, didn't lie with him in such a circumstance, but after declaring so confidently it'd need thrice its strength to affect him, it wasn't something he'd say aloud.

In that case, it lent itself to ruining Kirei Kotomine. It lent itself to marveling in the blood, in the violence of it all. He laughed at the children dying under the church. He laughed when Shinji Matou died, and the other servants, and the masters and the civilians. And he thought, truly, this was the pleasure he’d meant to show Kirei.

But Kirei only ate that disgusting spicy garbage in his indulgence, and he never had wild orgies, nor did he spend lavishly. A pathetic, boring life. What was the term men used these days? Puritanical? Torturing himself for his God? His God that didn’t exist? Kirei Kotomine, a delusional man of faith, banking his entire existence on a framework of reality that simply wasn’t there?

Nothing. He was nothing, awful, boring nothing, breaking himself over and over for nothing, that painful self-flagellation these mongrels had these days, to suffer for salvation, for a salvation that would never come. How  _ laughable.  _ How hilarious. Kirei lived for nothing. A waste of a life. A waste of breath.

And Gilgamesh—

—had come to be used to such a man?

But was it not just for his entertainment? A whim? Did he not simply play house to pass the time? Surely so. Any words he thought better of and never said, any times his heart raced, how even after decades and centuries and millennia, he could be summoned and wind up in bed with a man and actually—

No. He shouldn’t think about that. He doesn’t want to. It was for pleasure, solely. Kirei, no better than a toy. That was right. That was what he wanted to be right. 

But he died. 

He died, and Gilgamesh never said a word to him of those thoughts. Why would he? It was always this way, with Gilgamesh taking things for granted and ‘living in the present’ while wasting precious time until they died, never to be seen again, never to be touched again. Those thoughts, their dubious existence, whether he cared or not, whether he promised himself not to care, if he took it for granted because if he didn’t, he’d have to admit that he—

And what  _ was  _ this, this pain? This tremor in his hands? Kirei Kotomine was the lowest of the low, not even in his lack of morals, but in how common he was, how he groveled at the feet of people he hated, how he never— he  _ never— _

And if he asked— if he asked, if Kirei Kotomine could ever be seen by him again, with his ugly hairstyle and his broad shoulders, and he asked,  _ was what we did a mistake? Do you regret what we had? What we didn’t have? Was this more than convenience?  _ Gilgamesh would look down upon him, and he’d tell him they had _nothing._ That he had never loved Kirei, that no matter how many times they woke up together, or how Kirei looked upon him with confusion when their lips parted, and whether that expression struck Gilgamesh's fancy, it simply didn’t fucking matter. And it was nothing, they were nothing, and Kirei was nothing. All of his suffering for nothing, all his hatred for nothing, everything he weathered through just to die by the hand of some fucking teenager, nothing. It  _ was _ a mistake. Not to be looked upon again. It was best that way, because loving a man with a still heart corrupted by black sludge was a low Gilgamesh refused to stoop to. Because loving him didn’t fit his tastes, and that even if he had said it out loud, Kirei would’ve just stared at him and said  _ I don’t understand. _

For what? He was wrong in the head. Even if Gilgamesh had shown him kindness instead of violence, would he have responded? So dreadfully slow. Kirei couldn’t even fathom the idea of being— of—

And he wouldn’t want to say it in the first place. A king wouldn’t utter such nonsense.

“Gilgamesh.” He snaps back to his senses. “Continue, please.”

“No.” Gilgamesh spits. “I’ve said enough. He means— he  _ meant _ nothing to me. He was a waste of my time. He was only good for a lay and to use for resources. He— out _ lived  _ his usefulness, and he’s dead, and I—“

He suddenly heaves forward. His knees draw towards his chest, his palms pressing hard into his eyelids.

_ “—No!  _ I don’t want to think of it anymore. Fuck, just— change the goddamn subject! Has your curiosity been sated, yet?! He didn’t mean a goddamn  _ thing!  _ It’s over! All of that shit is over!”

“You loved him.” Enkidu says incredulously.

Something burns in Gilgamesh’s eyes.

“I don’t—“

“Gilgamesh, you loved him.”

He rests his head on his knees.

“...Whether I didn’t, or did. It hardly matters.” He says dryly, slowly. “It didn’t matter then, and it doesn’t matter now. I couldn’t say it. Even if I had, he’d still die. The man was doomed, and I knew it from the start. I sped it up for him. It was amusing.”

“Was it really?”

“It was  _ funny,”  _ Gilgamesh snaps, “To watch him sink into the depths of depravity. How easily he turned to it. He was— fucking pathetic. Fucking, fucking,  _ fucking  _ pathetic. It was a relief he died! If he kept living, he’d have truly ended the world!”

“Or loved you, I suppose.”

As if he’d been struck, Gilgamesh flinches. The next move is instinct— he grabs Enkidu by the front of their robes.

“You  _ dare—“ _

“Of course. I always do.” Enkidu stares back at him without a shred of unease. “Gilgamesh, you’re still this terrified? Haven’t you learned?”

“You ask me what I’ve  _ learned?! _ Of what?!”

“Of death.” The dog huffs, nudging its nose into Gilgamesh’s wrists. With a final click of his tongue, he releases them. “Of life, of love. Of anything. I suppose this you is always so stuck, aren’t you?”

“Perhaps you’d enjoy being blasted halfway across the ocean.”

“Why are you so afraid? You speak of him like he was a monster with all that sadness in your eyes. Did he hurt you?”

“Pah! As if he’d lay a hand on—“

“Then what? Was the King of Uruk always such a coward? Simply because of an infatuation?”

“What,” His teeth grit. “Do you suggest, then, my friend?”

“To cry.”

Truly, _truly_ a cosmic mistake. A grand joke. Whatever misfortune brought them together, Gilgamesh marked Kirei as a dead man. His weight on his arm doomed him, after all. Wasn’t that how it always went? They always die.

If he were ever to see him again, what would he say? What would he do? He’d tell him just how little their time together meant. Not to think so highly of himself. To remember his place, the bottom of the barrel, scum hardly looked upon by his own father. A gopher. A man only useful for dirty work. An immoral sinner.

Because even if he wanted to— and he didn’t— Gilgamesh could never express how he felt. What ten years together did to him, how that interest was genuine, that he almost  _ wishes  _ he had met him in Uruk, in simpler times, when Grails meant nothing and no lofty God would order him to be ‘beautiful’ or kill. He wishes he met him somewhere else, that it was all different, that even as far beyond him it was, he could’ve— could’ve done  _ something  _ to fix him, because Kirei was broken. And he was in pain. And even tearing apart everything that drove him to madness didn’t alleviate that.

And Gilgamesh couldn’t help. And he didn’t even think to.

And it was too late.

It was always too late.

No one else could be privileged enough to see him shed a tear. It really is only one, too proud to let any more fall. Enkidu brushes it away, leaning their head against his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” They say. It changes nothing.

“I’m glad.” Gilgamesh chokes out. “I’m glad he’s dead.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because he’s better off that way. He’s probably happier to not exist any longer.”

Soft clouds pass through the sky. The leaves in the trees whistle as the wind streaks through them. The dog does things befitting for a dog, laying out between them both, almost cautiously so, and Enkidu continues to lean their weight against him.

Things never change. Death will find the both of them here, too. It always ends that way for Gilgamesh, but it's always him last.

Does it hurt?

Perhaps.

**Author's Note:**

> hoooof.  
> i said today "i don't have anything to post" and then decided to finish a fic i had started to prove a point to myself.  
> anyways, i'm not exactly happy with this (i still haven't finished fsn/hollow ataraxia OR caught up with fsf) but i think i know enough about their canons to have not...Completely contradicted it! the only thing i'm iffy on is gilgamesh's feelings on the constant "oh caren and kirei are soooo similar" that apparently crops up  
> oh, and i guess the whole "servants don't have super clear memories between being summoned" but what EVER i needed it to be clear okay? sue me  
> i have a lot of feelings about kirei (that nobody cares about) and i needed to put this out there (and no one will read it, or they'll read it and think i'm nuts.) i have more things started that examine kirei's thinking/behaviors more but they're...tooooo short to post on their own! i also desperately love enkidu and want to write them more...  
> but fsf being in the fsn/etc canon whooped my ass and i'm super sad about it LOL i'm waiting anxiously on whatever fight may ensue between pale rider and gil&enkidu...


End file.
